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AeroVelo Breaks Human-powered Land Speed Record

Posted by Soulskill on from the zoom-zoom dept.

yyzmcleod sends news that AeroVelo, a Canadian team of engineers and students, has built a bike that successfully broke the human-powered land speed record. (This is the same group that built a human-powered helicopter in 2013.) The team's Eta recumbent speed bike managed a speed of 85.7mph (137.9km/h). The previous record was 83.1 mph.

21 comments

  1. Fixed summary by U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M · · Score: 2, Informative

    yyzmcleod sends news that AeroVelo, a Canadian team of engineers and students, has built a bike that successfully broke the human-powered land speed record. (This is the same group that built a human-powered helicopter in 2013.) The team's Eta recumbent speed bike managed a speed of 137.9km/h (85.7mph). The previous record was 133.7km/h (83.1 mph).

    1. Re:Fixed summary by Teun · · Score: 0

      You missed the links but otherwise you are on the ball, reading the summary it was also my first thought.
      Both Canada and The Netherlands use km/h as the unit for road speed, for them mph is just a curiosity.

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    2. Re:Fixed summary by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 1

      What good is being pedantic if you're still using arbitrary anthropocentric units? Let's really fix the summary:

      yyzmcleod sends news that AeroVelo, a Canadian team of engineers and students, has built a bike that successfully broke the human-powered land speed record. (This is the same group that built a human-powered helicopter 1.1e51 tp before present.) The team's Eta recumbent speed bike managed a speed of 1.2779283e-07 c. The previous record was 1.2391581e-07 c.

  2. 88 mph by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Just a little faster....

    and a flux capacitor

    1. Re: 88 mph by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...plus a power source that can supply 1.21 jigawatts.

    2. Re: 88 mph by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Possible,but probably not this year...although, if you do it in one year, you did it in any year...

    3. Re:88 mph by thoughtlover · · Score: 1

      That's plenty fast for the daily commute. I was excited, at first, but 0-88 in five miles?? No thanks. I'll stick with the aging Toyota for now.

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  3. Stupid question but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A camera and monitor? And the battery to power them? Wouldn't having a window save a significant amount of weight over a bunch of tech added into the mix?

    1. Re:Stupid question but... by YrWrstNtmr · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Actually, no. It's not just weight. In that reclined position, a camera in the nose and a monitor provides a better picture than looking through a long curved 'window', that you're looking at mostly edge on.
      As far as weight....once you get it up to speed, a few ounces more or less doesn't really matter.

      This has been done before.

    2. Re:Stupid question but... by dsmatthews9379 · · Score: 1

      It could have been a strength to weight ratio advantage in the shell construction they used. Probably composite, carbon fiber etc.

    3. Re:Stupid question but... by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Informative

      Using the camera provides a substantial improvement in riding position, which translates into an improvement in aerodynamics. Easy Racers did the same thing while they were still around, and chasing land speed records.

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    4. Re: Stupid question but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      The camera is in the little wing above the bike. Seeing the bike in the picture, and having the camera higher really helps the pilot control it. The view is MUCH better than any windshield we did for our past bikes, and the aerodynamics are better too, getting large regions of laminar flow

  4. Easy to break. by Etherwalk · · Score: 1

    Easy to break. Uses long rope to move vehicle over land. Tied to human. Human steps off very tall cliff at destination. As we all know from cartoons, if he looks down, he will then fall.

    1. Re:Easy to break. by dpidcoe · · Score: 1

      Maximum achievable speed there would be ~120mph. To get faster you'd have to come up with new innovations such as packaging the human in an aerodynamic lead shell.

  5. Not human powered by pavon · · Score: 1

    That's gravity powered, not human powered. If you are going to allow that, you could probably go just as fast if not faster than terminal velocity speed by simply allowing these bicycles to ride downhill.

  6. The fastest unpaced bicycle by NotSoHeavyD3 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Just pointing out if you're allowed to use slipstreaming (you pedal behind a car which is blocking the air for you) the world record is actually 167 mph https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

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    1. Re:The fastest unpaced bicycle by AikonMGB · · Score: 2

      Just pointing out that the focus of this attempt, and thus the record category, is explicitly the human-powered aspect; they set their sights on the human-powered land speed record because it aligns with their ambitions and mission statement. To them, the speed is really just a metric to measure the efficiency of their design. AeroVelo is all about what we can achieve using the power output of the human body, which is why their world-first human-powered ornithopter and human-powered helicopter were also Big Deals(TM).

      Slip-streaming would take away from the human-powered aspect; to them, it's about a lot more than just the speed. That's not to take away from other record categories, which are all impressive in their own right; I'm just trying to explain why AeroVelo targeted this one specifically and why the fact that it is unpaced (and even the very low limits on legal wind) is part of their identity.

  7. Going 85.75 mph / 137.93 kph by nickweller · · Score: 1

    Like .. WOW !!!!

  8. How much power? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In bike racing the power output of the rider is the most important factor.
    I wonder how many watts was produced here, which translates into how good a bike rider is needed to do this.

    1. Re:How much power? by show+me+altoids · · Score: 1

      DNRTFA, but did they test the rider/pilot/dude for doping? Would that invalidate the record in the view of the sanctioning body?

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